Alejandro Casas, Fabiola Parra, Selene Rangel, Susana Guillén, José Blancas, Carmen J. Figueredo
5. Evolutionary Approaches to Ethnobiology
C. Haris Saslis-Lagoudakis, Nina Rønsted, Andrew C. Clarke, Julie A. Hawkins
6. Niche Construction Theory and Ethnobiology
Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Flávia Rosa Santoro, Wendy Marisol Torres Avilez, José Ribamar Sousa Júnior
7. Knowledge Transmission: The Social Origin of Information and Cultural Evolution
Gustavo Taboada Soldati
8. Resilience and Adaptation in Social-ecological Systems
Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, André Luiz Borba Nascimento, Marcelo Alves Ramos, Patrícia Muniz de Medeiros, Gustavo Taboada Soldati, Flávia Rosa Santoro, Victoria Reyes-García, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
9. Utilitarian Redundancy: Conceptualization and Potential Applications in Ethnobiological Research
André Luiz Borba Nascimento, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Marcelo Alves Ramos, Patrícia Muniz de Medeiros, Gustavo Taboada Soldati, Flávia Rosa Santoro, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
10. The Influence of the Environment on Natural Resource Use: Evidence of Apparency
Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque, Gustavo Taboada Soldati, Marcelo Alves Ramos, Joabe Gomes de Melo, Patrícia Muniz de Medeiros, André Luiz Borba Nascimento, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior
11. Local Criteria for Medicinal Plant Selection
Patrícia Muniz de Medeiros, Ana Haydée Ladio, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
12. Use Patterns of Medicinal Plants by Local Populations
Patrícia Muniz de Medeiros, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
13. Biological and Cultural Bases of the Use of Medicinal and Food Plants
Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Letícia Zenóbia de Oliveira Campos, Andrea Pieroni, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
14. An Evolutionary Perspective on the Use of Hallucinogens
Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Margarita Paloma Cruz, Fábio José Vieira, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
Laboratory of Applied and Theoretical Ethnobiology
Department of Biology
Federal Rural University of Pernambuco
Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
This work adds an ecological and evolutionary perspective to the study of the relations between humans and natural resources. The first to cover this subject in English, this text studies the branch of ethnobiology that analyzes the evolutionary history of human behavioral patterns and human understanding about biological resources, considering the historical and contemporary aspects that influence these behaviors at both the individual and societal levels.
Ethnobiology aggregates different theoretical, epistemological, and methodological perspectives. While some of these perspectives ignore the ecological and evolutionary nature of ethnobiology, the conventional ecological science insufficiently considers human aspects as topics of theoretical interest. Through exploring theories in ethnobiology, this work examines the interrelationships between people and nature, considering the forces that helped shape this inextricable link.